Tech association criticises IATA’s NDC
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The European Technology and Travel Services Association (ETTSA) has repeated his call for more industry involvement into IATA’s New Distribution Capacity (NDC) during a talk at GBTA Europe in Prague.
ETTSA’s secretary general Christoph Klenner urged IATA to “get real” and include more distributors, travel agents and buyers in the development of the new standard despite IATA saying it had included various industry members during NDC’s preliminary stages.
Klenner has argued that while IATA claims NDC is a data standard, the text could have broader implications including a potential rise in fare costs.
“NDC as it stands is bad news for travel buyers. It is fundamentally at odds with the principles of managed travel programmes – transparency, the ability to comparison-shop anonymously, and the facility of having a single repository where all travel data is securely stored,” said Klenner.
“NDC appears to involve a group of airlines attempting to collectively impose on buyers, consumers and travel agents a business model which is founded on the use of opaque fares and ancillaries to make real comparison shopping difficult, if not impossible,” he added.
Klenner believes that by using specific fare requests, airlines will be able to tilt the pricing power in their favour and in effect lean customers more towards them than travel partners.
He said the association is keen to work with IATA on a “mutually acceptable solution”
IATA has faced several criticisms for its NDC system since its announcement but has always responded by saying it spoke to travel agents, technology companies and airlines during its set-up process.
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